


The Best Sometimes Forget

by sonicSymphony



Series: Soft Stars [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alcohol, Canonical Character Death, Colonist (Mass Effect), Conflict Resolution, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings Realization, Gen, Introspection, Mass Effect 2, Paragon Commander Shepard, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Ruthless (Mass Effect), Turian in Civvies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:32:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12122610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicSymphony/pseuds/sonicSymphony
Summary: As Shepard helps Garrus find Harkin and track down Sidonis, his eerily familiar anger doesn't sit right with her. In the aftermath, Shepard and Garrus must deal with how lessons learned on Torfan still apply over seven years later. She never expected the word "butcher" to fall from his mouth.





	The Best Sometimes Forget

**Author's Note:**

> Here goes my longest Mass Effect oneshot yet! The other two in the _Soft Stars_ aren't necessary reading, but they do give a bit of context to some stuff that gets discussed. Though it starts with a conversation from the Eye for an Eye mission, this fic centers on what happens after. It isn't pretty.
> 
> The title comes from this quote: 
> 
> "But men are men; the best sometimes forget:
> 
> Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
> 
> As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
> 
> Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
> 
> From him that fled some strange indignity,
> 
> Which patience could not pass."
> 
>  _Othello_ , Act 2, Scene III

Garrus was fuming, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. Even this angry, his driving was smooth—smoother than Shepard’s by a longshot. Granted, the steady stream of Citadel traffic was different from the rugged planets she pushed the Mako across, but Shepard hadn’t done so hot on her regular skycar driving test either. She didn’t need to be nervous about letting Garrus drive angry; she knew he would never endanger someone else’s safety with reckless handling, especially her own. She thought he was going to stew in silence until he said, “We shouldn’t have let him go. He deserved to be punished.”

Shepard bit back a sigh. She was making an effort not to be too preachy with him; he’d asked _Shepard_ to come with him to find Sidonis, not his Commander. Whatever their relationship was on the SR-1 had changed and until now, Shepard had thought it was for the better, but seeing Garrus this worked up made her wish he still took her word as God’s.

No. No, she didn’t. She shouldn’t think that. A pedestal was no basis for a friendship. She just had to get back in the right mindset. _Friend_ , she reminded herself, not _Commander_ today. “I’m getting a little worried about you, Garrus,” she said. “You were pretty hard on Harkin.”

 _Hard_ was an understatement—they’d killed a lot of mercs to get to Fade. Harkin was the target, but others had paid for it, and Garrus didn’t even care that they’d already christened his revenge quest with blood. Shepard knew it could get messier from here. Maybe she could de-escalate it without pulling out a gun.

“What do you want from me, Shepard?” Garrus turned away from her. “What would you do if someone betrayed you?”

Shepard knew betrayal, but not the way Garrus did. She knew the betrayal of self more than the betrayal of men, but he didn’t want to hear more of her enlightened bullshit. “I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t let it change me.” She took a slow breath in and out. No, Shepard hadn’t been betrayed like Garrus had been, but vengeance had warped them both into people she didn’t recognize. She didn’t want the same outcome for him.

Garrus said, “I would’ve said the same thing before it happened to me.”

Seventy-two Alliance soldiers, four hundred and twelve slaves, sixty-five batarian civilians, and two hundred and forty-three batarian slavers. Shepard had a lot of ghosts, but she hadn’t lost touch with the idea that ten was too many. Garrus didn’t need eleven. “It’s not too late,” she said. “You don’t have to go through with this.”

“Who’s going to bring Sidonis to justice if I don’t?” Garrus said with grim conviction. He didn’t snap at her or lose his temper, like he did with Harkin, but Shepard had been backed into a lot of corners. She could see the same feeling in Garrus, and though he’d never lash out at her physically, Shepard thought words were worse sometimes. He was her best friend; however, both friends and soldiers fought. “Nobody else knows what he’s done. Nobody else cares. I don’t see any other options.”

 _I care_ , she didn’t say. _I care about what he’s doing to you right now._ “Let me talk to him,” she said.

He leaned back in the seat. “Talk all you want, but it won’t change my mind.” She felt like he wasn’t just talking about Sidonis. “I don’t care what his reasons were, he screwed us… he deserves to die.”

Shepard closed her eyes, grounding herself. She hadn’t wanted to pull out the big guns, but he was leaving her no other choice. She turned in her seat to face him fully, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I _understand_ what you’re going through—but do you really want to kill him?” Garrus paused, considering. She saw the resolve in the set of his brow, plus a bit of hesitation, meaning their minds were in the same place. “Garrus, don’t let this be your Torfan.”

It was a lot to say. Back on the SR-1, Garrus was the only one she’d ever discussed Torfan with, and he realized how low Shepard had fallen when she had become the Butcher. They hadn’t discussed it much since, but Garrus had to know how much regret and guilt she carried. The human phrase he’d used before—an eye for an eye—wasn’t the whole thing; Garrus didn’t like her added _makes the whole world blind._ He let out a huff of breath that might’ve been a laugh. “So you get your justice but I don’t get mine? I appreciate your concern, but I’m not you. I can handle this.”

She saw red, and it wasn’t the glowing cybernetics in her skin. Garrus wasn’t trying to be condescending, but if he thought one conversation with her gave him the ultimate perspective on Torfan, he was damn wrong. “This isn’t you, either. Torfan wasn’t justice and you know it. The Garrus I know would’ve never said that to me.”

“Listen…” He was silent for a moment, considering, as he pulled the shuttle to a stop. “Our situations aren’t the same, Shepard.”

“Then you’re oblivious,” she said bluntly. “It’s clear as day to me. Mercs killed your squad, batarians killed my family. You found Sidonis, I ran into more batarian slavers. I got a lot of people killed, and you’re about to fire a sniper rifle into a crowd of civilians to settle a grudge.”

“I’m a better shot than you’re implying, Shepard.” He sounded irritated as he put the shuttle into park more forcefully than he needed to.

Shepard’s, “I guess we’ll see about that,” was clipped.

 

* * *

 

Garrus’s third eye burned onto Shepard’s back.

She spoke. The traitor replied.

Sidonis was a shell.

Shepard remembered the sequence of combo detonations she had to do in the climate control room during the raid on the first stronghold on Torfan. Subtle, precise biotics had always been her specialty, though her combat biotic prowess was shown by the bodies littering the hall behind her. Fighting to this room had been a lot more hand-to-hand focused than Shepard was used to; even though she was more of a mid-range fighter, she still knew how to manually bust shields and slit throats. Her mind was working overtime as she figured out how to make the system ignite, but even as she was racing with the adrenaline of battle, Shepard had been a shell, too.

Words could come from empty people, though. Even if they ended up failing, Shepard could still try.

“Just… just tell him to go,” Garrus said. There was frustration in his tone; the words were not empty.

Shepard allowed herself a moment to close her eyes and let out a breath. Maybe in another universe, when Major Kyle ordered her to honor the batarians’ surrender, she had listened.

 

* * *

 

Garrus had taken the unexpected ending to his revenge quest well, if Shepard was reading him right. Even so, he wasn’t himself on the shuttle ride back to the Normandy—he was silent, staring out the window as Shepard drove (what a deviation! Garrus never wanted to let Shepard drive), his face blank in the reflection of the glass. A few times, Garrus had caught Shepard glancing over at him, their eyes briefly meeting, but she quickly refocused on driving.

Thane appeared to be dozing in the back seat of the shuttle, his eyes closed and head tilted back. He was likely just meditating, or trying to avoid the awkward tension, but Shepard had a feeling that he wanted to give them privacy.

Though Garrus’s expression had calmed and she couldn’t see rage in the line of his shoulders, his mandibles were flicking up then out: a sign of irritation. The fact that he’d let her drive without argument showed that he wasn’t in the mood for anything other than brooding. She’d expected a more violent reaction from him after standing in the way of his bullet, so she’d take his annoyance over the fury she had been expecting.

Today had been rough. A day’s shore leave had turned into helping Garrus with this errand, and even though she didn’t mind the distraction—Shepard would drop everything to help Garrus if he admitted to needing it—she wanted this confrontation to be worth it in his mind. Despite the cordial words he’d had with her before they lifted off, Shepard was antsy. She cared deeply about her squad and her crew, but she wasn’t used to the unease that settled in her gut with the idea that she might’ve just irreparably damaged her friendship with Garrus, no matter what he’d said about his change in perspective. It scared her, how much he meant to her, how much she’d come to depend on him since being trapped on a Cerberus ship, how much she always just wanted to get a little closer to him—

Despite Shepard being the one in charge, it felt like she was backed into a corner again, facing impossible odds with nothing but her hands that didn’t yet know how to make proper fists. Did the quiet feel as oppressive to Garrus? She could swear she heard the echoes of explosions in the distance, getting closer.

_“As long as he’s dead, I’ll be satisfied.”_

What a pretty sentiment. What a gross oversimplification. Vengeance was a hard thirst to quench, and vengeance paid in blood was harder. You could think what you were doing was right until you were staring at the list of people you’d gotten killed in the meantime, knowing there was nothing you could do to take a single life back. No matter how many people you saved, no matter how many wrongs you righted, it would never take away the slaughter you’d seen or the slaughter you’d caused.

Torfan had been darkness interspersed with fire. Air had to be pumped down into the caves, and pressurized oxygen lines lit up like ignition boosters. It had been funny to Shepard that the batarians’ life support was what killed them all—the slavers, the slaves, who cared? The end justified the means, and if this was the end that would bleach her parents’ mangled bodies from her mind and put the howling at rest, then—

“Shepard, you passed our dock,” Major Kyle said.

“Sorry, sir,” Shepard replied, blinking hard to bring herself back to the present as she shifted lanes to make a U-turn.

“‘Sir’?”

Shepard’s hands tightened on the wheel. She didn’t need to look at Garrus directly to see his slack-mandibled expression. Blood rushing in her ears, she said, “Sorry, Garrus.”

“How are you more out of it than I am?” he said with a hint of self-deprecation. Shepard turned the skycar around. “Maybe you should’ve let me drive.”

Was it always so hot in here? She felt like there wasn’t enough air.

“I’m fine,” Shepard said. “I wanted to give you some time to cool down. How are you?”

“Not ready to talk yet,” he said, mandibles pulling back against his face.

Shepard pushed. “I really do think this was the right thing to do, Garrus. I’m glad you made the decision you did.”

“You mean the one you forced me into,” he snapped, then sighed. “Sorry, I’m—”

“No, go on ahead,” Shepard said, pulling the shuttle around the right turn. “I’d love to hear how you’re rationalizing your new grayscale morality.” Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel.

“Oh, so now you’re disapproving,” Garrus scoffed.

“That’s not what I said,” Shepard retorted. She centered herself, making sure she was paying attention to their surroundings. They were coming up on the Normandy’s dock. They didn’t need to bring their emotional baggage onto the ship with them—Garrus needed to let go of Sidonis, and Shepard needed to shirk the Butcher of Torfan mantle. It had been a while since a PTSD flare; Shepard forgot how _close_ everything felt. “I just want to make sure this lesson sticks. That wasn’t you back there, Garrus.”

“Why do you think it wasn’t?” Garrus asked, exasperated. “Have you forgotten Dr. Saleon? Have you forgotten _Archangel_? I wasn’t just having tea parties with criminals on Omega, Shepard. I spilled a lot of blood.”

“That was different,” Shepard said. She didn’t really approve of vigilante justice, but Omega was a shithole with no rules and Garrus was just trying to do the right thing. If she’d been alive, she would’ve reamed him out for even _considering_ running away to that station, but she also knew that if she’d never died, he probably wouldn’t have gone to Omega in the first place. The thought sat weirdly in her chest. “You were trying to help people on Omega, Garrus. I can respect that.”

“I wasn’t always that altruistic,” Garrus said before Shepard could finish her thought. “I was _mad_ on Omega, Shepard. I got ruthless.”

Shepard stopped the skycar and put it into park. Leaning back into her seat, she let out a long exhale. Glancing back into the rearview mirror, she saw that the backseat was empty; Thane must’ve vacated silently the second she’d stopped. She took a moment to appreciate the drell for his subtly before saying to Garrus, “This wasn’t Omega, Garrus. This was a military operation. On the _Citadel_. Ruthless wasn’t going to be an option here.”

“Oh,” Garrus said sarcastically, “my bad, this was a _military_ operation! _I_ thought that this was me asking my best friend for help. Guess I was mistaken.”

Great, now she felt even worse. “I _did_ help you as a friend, Garrus. And as your friend, I wanted you to come back to the ship as the same person who walked off. That’s all. And you are! Am I not allowed to say that I’m proud of you? Does praise suddenly make your blood boil? You seemed fine with it on the SR-1.”

“How many times do I have to say this?” Garrus demanded. “I’m not the naïve kid you left back on the Citadel, Shepard. I thought we were done with the Garrus-learns-a-valuable-lesson shit.”

“You can still learn from missions,” Shepard snapped. “You stop learning and you stop being an effective soldier.”

“I didn’t stop learning after the chase for Saren,” Garrus snapped back. “I didn’t go ‘oh, guess I learned everything I could from Shepard, I’m good.’ You know what happened, Shepard? You fucking _died_. That changed _everything_.”

Shepard didn’t like thinking about her death. It was hard to comprehend—those two years were just blank. One moment, she was drifting among the stars, reaching desperately for her oxygen hose, and the next she was waking up on a cold slab, aches and pains shooting through her. When she saw Tali soon after, Shepard was elated, but the quarian would hardly look at her. That was when the shock of two years really hit Shepard. It hadn’t quite worn off yet.

“I can’t remember ever being as angry as I was then,” Garrus said grimly. “You’d been killed by geth. Just geth! And the Council was trying to say that the Reaper threat was just geth, too. It was like they were disrespecting your memory at every turn. There was no going back to the Normandy, and C-Sec just felt _worthless_ after what we’d done. My mom—” He cut himself off there, his eyes shutting as his mandibles trembled. His voice was quieter when he continued, “None of it was fucking fair and I was pissed about it, so I needed to go somewhere and do something where I could just be angry.”

Garrus sounded so much like she used to that it was scary. She thought letting Sidonis go would make that vengeful part of him vanish, and it _might_ have if she hadn’t drudged up this stupid argument. The stab of self-hatred was keen and clear. Carefully making sure she wasn’t going to shout, Shepard said, “I know how you’re feeling, Garrus. You need to let go of your anger. It isn’t helping you.”

Scoffing, Garrus said, “Like I said before, I’m not you, _Butcher_. You don’t know what I need.”

Shepard remembered being awarded the Butcher of Torfan title. It had been in a Westerlund News piece that went viral when Shepard had returned to duty after dealing with the aftermath, and oh boy had it stuck and stung. She hated how it made her chest burn with shame, but she deserved it, didn’t she? She _was_ a butcher. What she had done on Torfan shouldn’t have been praised. The name wouldn’t let her forget what she’d done or her plight to be better, but she still yearned for the day she was good enough that no one would ever throw that name at her again.

Hearing Garrus say it made her mind go blank. The sharp stab of pain in her chest was physical, and Shepard flinched. As she went rigid, Garrus deflated. “Spirits,” he breathed. “Shepard. Shepard, I’m so sorry. I—”

“No,” Shepard said, monotone. She blinked hard. The ozone stench of biotics filled her nostrils, but her hands did not glow. “You can always tell me what you think, Garrus.”

“That’s not what I think,” Garrus said hurriedly. “Shepard, I _promise_ you, that’s not what I think. That isn’t who you are. I was mad and…”

Shepard smiled, looking at her feet. Her ears rang. “You wanted to hurt me. I get it. Take some time to cool off, Garrus. We don’t pull out until tomorrow morning. Dismissed.”

Her hand slammed the panel to open the door and Shepard was up and out of the skycar in record time. She moved forward, boots snapping against the tile, but Garrus caught up to her, stopping her with a hand to her elbow and she went stiff. “Let go.”

“Shepard…” His grip slackened, but he didn’t uncurl his fingers.

Shepard continued forward and into the ship. His hand fell away and he was left standing alone on the dock, arm still extended toward her.

 

* * *

 

Kasumi wasn’t in her usual spot on the Port Observation Deck, thank God. The bar on the ship was empty, probably because everyone was off at one of the Citadel bars for shore leave. Shepard was grateful for the quiet.

It was time to give her new Cerberus liver a run for its money. She grabbed a handle of bourbon from the cabinet and began to pour herself a glass. “EDI, lock the door and don’t let anyone in.”

“Locks engaged,” EDI reported.

From behind her, Major Kyle said, “Commander, I’m sensing heightened heartrate and blood pressure, which indicate high stress levels.”

The bourbon overflowed and she got some of the amber liquid on her hand. “Fuck,” she muttered, reaching for a napkin.

“Commander?” EDI inquired.

Shepard shook her head. “Don’t worry about it.”

It was more bourbon than she’d mean to pour—without the ice, that was a hefty serving—but it took a few strong drinks to get her to a buzz, so this portion would be a good start. Carefully, she brought the drink to her lips and sipped, bringing the liquid rim down. She found that she didn’t want to stop. The navy had made sure she knew how to chug alcohol and the bourbon was smooth, so it went down easy. The burn was there, of course, and it was hard to get over the lump in her throat, but she found satisfaction in setting the empty glass down on the table.

Shepard took a deep breath and belched. Her eyes were watering was from the potency of the drink, but she didn’t need a chaser. Instead of taking a moment to breathe, she focused on putting away the bourbon and taking out an asari liqueur. She didn’t expect to see it on a Cerberus ship, but Kelly liked it. The yeoman wouldn’t mind if Shepard did a couple shots of it.

Normally, people wouldn’t take shots of this stuff. It was a nice mixer or something to be sipped, but the same argument could be made for bourbon. Shepard took a double shot glass off the shelf and poured; the drink was thick and syrupy, with bits of glitter in the deep blue muck that made it look like the night sky. Shepard knew space like no other; she’d died in it and was forced to stare at it as she tried to sleep. When she was crawling through tunnels half her height and tearing apart wiring with her biotics on Torfan, she felt like she was running out of air deep in the cave, but now she really knew what asphyxiation was like. It wasn’t an experience she wanted to repeat.

Shepard shouldn’t think about that right now—she wanted to self-pity drink, not panic drink. The viscous liqueur tasted fruity, but it wasn’t a fruit she could firmly identify. It coated the inside of her mouth and throat when she was done, a slight tingle lingering. She put the asari liqueur away. Next to it on the shelf was a bottle of ryncol she’d gotten Grunt after his rite of passage. He wouldn’t mind if she had some, right? She was his Battlemaster. It would be fine.

She poured a double and put the bottle away safely before downing it. This shit _burned_. She thought bourbon had a decent kick, like getting tapped in the chest; ryncol was like a klixen had breathed fire into her throat and down into her stomach. “Whoa, there,” she muttered, her hands curling into fists on the counter. Despite the liquid being in her belly already, her throat was scorching. Yep, definitely needed a chaser for that.

Grabbing the asari liqueur, she took a swig straight from the bottle, then cleaned the glass rim with a napkin. Sorry, Kelly. Shepard missed the shelf when she tried to put the bottle down but didn’t drop it. On take two, it landed hard on the counter. Success.

Straightening, she felt the world tilt. Wow that hit fast. Did ryncol always hit this fast? The strong buzz was a pleasant feeling. Man, she’d missed this. Between military school and Torfan, she used to get torched with her friends all. the. time. Luckily, while she was an angry person at that point, she wasn’t an angry drunk. Consuming liquor was a reprieve from the fury, the scared little girl quieting as she drank, and she’d met good people wherever she went—at school, at boot camp, in her first units, in N7 training. She wished she’d kept in better contact with them before she’d died. Lacy Hempel, Juanita Gutierrez, Trevor Weismann, and John Chamberlain (and God had that been hard, becoming friends with another John so soon after her brother’s death on Mindoir) were all good fucking kids, if troublemakers. The five of them tore the Alliance’s most prestigious military academy _up_. She missed the hell out of them, but she’d fallen out of contact with them right around Torfan.

What a fucking well of regret in her life: the time she’d become the Butcher of Torfan. She thought it would be the best assignment of her life. Finally, it was her chance to get back at the batarians who murdered her family and friends and her entire way of life. Before the batarian slavers, she had people who’d loved her. She had dreams. The Alliance was John’s dream; Janie’s was going to a university with a good xenolinguistics program. By the time she was sixteen, she’d known fourteen human languages, two asari, and the most common salarian language. She’d always had a knack for languages and learned them fast, and even though she loved the simple life on her parents’ farm, she wanted to see the vast expanse of Council space.

And she did get to see it this way, she guessed. She didn’t regret her time with the Alliance; she regretted how she’d gotten there, and how she’d killed her way up to her current position. That was why Shepard worked so hard to be a good person now. She wanted to be fair and heroic and _kind_. The Butcher of Torfan wasn’t any of those things. She had still been failing to cope a decade after Mindoir. “Coping” for her had been running away from the foster care system at sixteen and spending two terrible months on Omega before taking the Alliance’s offer for military school. On Omega, she’d transformed from a coward who hid as her family was slaughtered to an underground prizefighter—a bad one, but she’d still toughened up.

The Butcher hated every batarian for the virtue of being their species. The Butcher didn’t care about collateral damage as long as the mission objective was completed. The Butcher didn’t want to get to know the people directly under her because during her first few years as an officer, she had a 70% mortality rate for those under her command; the Alliance didn’t care because she never failed a mission. Her special tactics teams were incredible—that’s why she was selected for the close quarters, impenetrable strongholds of Torfan.

In the time after that mission, when Shepard had two months off, the Alliance counselor forced her to go all the way back to Mindoir (not physically, but mentally). That, the psychologist assured her, was the root of all her trauma. Shepard had never properly healed from that devastation, and to move forward, she had to take a few steps back first.

That healing was done, though. Now instead of Mindoir haunting her at every turn—though nightmares of melting flesh and burning crops did come to her at times—it was Torfan. Those two months of leave helped Shepard work through most of her issues, but she’d never quite come to terms with the person she’d been then. She was so afraid she’d regress, becoming angry and bitter and killing everything in her path, even if there was an option to extend a hand to help. Her parents hadn’t raised her and John to be ruthless.

It was the would-be familial shame that helped Shepard out of the dark. She was the last Shepard, and she wasn’t going to let her oldest ghosts down.

Speaking of down… Shepard needed to sit. There weren’t any bar stools at the counter and the couches were aaaaaall the way across the room, so she figured the floor was fine, but first! First, she needed provisions; if she wanted to maintain this buzz, she needed to keep drinking. Shepard wanted something easy, so she grabbed the slim neck of a bottle of vodka: a classic. If she didn’t already know how fucking rich the Illusive Man was, she’d know it by looking at this alcohol stash—not a single bottle was plastic. Sure, the store of booze wasn’t gigantic, but there was enough to have some variety. There wasn’t anything dextro, however; Garrus and Tali must keep their alcohol with the rest of their stuff, just in case one of the humans accidentally drank it.

Oh fuck, _Garrus_. Shepard plopped down on the ground. She’d fucked up hard on that one. The situation got a little out of hand, even if Garrus did make the choice Shepard wanted him to. She was proud of him. She really was! But the vengeance scenario was too close to Torfan so _of course_ it had to trigger her PTSD. It shouldn’t have! She was supposed to be fine! And she was most of the time, right? Clean, sober, and clear-headed. From Torfan until her death, she hadn’t slipped back into alcoholism, nor had she dabbled into Red Sand. However, someone who was supposed to be clear-headed didn’t hear the voice of their old CO, nor did they get sucked back into the past so easily. She hadn’t wanted Garrus to realize where her head was at, so she’d pushed him about Sidonis, and he’d called her Butcher.

Shepard didn’t think she would ever forget that. Even if— _when_ , she assured herself—she and Garrus made up, even if they went back to being the best of friends, she’d hear him saying _Butcher_. Butcher, butcher, butcher! Maybe if she repeated it enough times, it would cease to have meaning. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them back. No, she wasn’t a crier; she couldn’t cry over this stupid thing. She only wanted to cry because she was drunk, right? Not because it hurt so much to consider Garrus thinking of her as the person she’d tried so hard to distance herself from? Was this the betrayal Garrus was adamant she hadn’t ever experienced?

No, it wasn’t a betrayal if he was just repeating the truth.

Unexpectedly, the door to the lounge whirred open. Standing in the threshold was Garrus Vakarian himself, dressed in civvies instead of his scarred armor, and he seemed confused, scanning the room as if he was expecting hostiles to pop out of the furniture. That, Shepard thought, might not be far off. “Fuck,” she said too loudly, then glared up at the ceiling. “EDI, I told you to lock it.”

“Officer Vakarian was looking for you,” EDI replied as the door slid shut behind Garrus. He looked down at Shepard, bewildered, as EDI continued, “I am aware of your open-door policy.”

“Tha’s—” Shepard tried to make herself slump less. Garrus began to move around the couch to come over to her, but when Shepard scooted backwards on her ass to put some distance between them, he stopped. Shepard looked at the EDI orb that had popped up on the wall to the left of Shepard. “EDI, I’m _drunk_ , get him out of here!”

“Thank you, EDI,” Garrus said. His voice was soft, his subvocals sticking out. God, she wished humans could understand subvocals. Maybe shit like this wouldn’t happen if Shepard wasn’t tone-deaf. “Can you give us some privacy?”

“Logging you out,” EDI said before she disappeared.

Groaning, Shepard exclaimed, “EDI! Do y’ not know what _no one_ means?!”

“Don’t be mad at the AI, Shepard,” Garrus said. His voice still wasn’t at its normal volume, and Shepard found that weird. Maybe there was something wrong with her ears? EDI was at regular volume, though. Eh, it didn’t matter. With her thumb, Shepard started unscrewing the top on her vodka bottle, letting the cap fall to the floor. She squinted at Garrus, and his hands wrung together. “I wanted to say I was sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“P-shaw,” Shepard said, waving her free hand. She knocked back the vodka handle and couldn’t feel the alcohol sliding down her throat, so she took a few gulps. “You—” Shepard burped. “Y’ don’t owe me shit for telling the truth, Vakarian. Was my fault.”

Garrus’s mandibles pressed close to his cheeks. “No,” he said. He was staring at her bottle, and she brought it closer to her chest protectively. His browplates drew together. “Shepard, I thought you quit drinking.”

She shrugged. “Who cares?”

He looked devastated. It made her stomach roll. Shepard wanted to make this better, not worse. “Garrus,” she said, reaching a hand out, “come sit. I’m sorry.”

“Oh sure, make me sit on the floor,” Garrus said, trying for some humor. He wasn’t mad anymore.

Shepard brought her hand back in. “You don’t have to.”

Garrus shook his head, sitting across from her, about a foot of space between them. He had his legs folded underneath him, his bone spurs sticking out at awkward angles. Unhindered by decorum in her current state, Shepard reached out and dragged the back of her finger across his right spur. Garrus just watched. Though the spur was the same color as his plates, it was a lot smoother, feeling less like sandpaper and more like bone. Shepard looked up at him, but he was watching her hand. “What even are these?”

He chuckled a little. “They’re leg spurs, Shepard.”

“Well, yeah.” Shepard rolled her eyes. “I knew that much. What’re they for?”

“These days, not much,” Garrus replied. “Thousands of years ago, we used them for fighting. Now all they do is hurt like all hell if we break them off.”

“Fighting?” Shepard questioned incredulously. “Oh my God, turians _are_ birds! Roosters! All of you!”

“Hey, watch the slurs,” Garrus said lightly. “What’s a rooster?”

“A _bird_ ,” she emphasized. At Garrus’s dry look, Shepard said, “A farm bird. We had lots of chickens on Mindoir. We had hens to lay eggs, and we had a couple a’ roosters to help take care of ‘em and fertilize some eggs every once in a while. We had this _big_ rooster,” Shepard gestured with her hands, holding them over two feet apart without letting go of the vodka, “my mom named him Desolas.” Garrus snorted. Shepard waved her hand, blasé. “I know, I know, poor taste. She was on Shanxi, you know. Last assignment before she was gonna get an education on the GI bill. Glad she made it out of that mess.”

“My parents were both out of the military when the First Contact War happened,” Garrus said. “You’d already been born, right?”

“I was three,” Shepard said, then scrunched her brow as she thought. “Well, I turned four during it.” She knocked back more of her vodka.

“Shepard, can you give me the bottle?” Garrus requested, reaching out.

“No!” she replied. “Why? You can’t drink it, it’s levo.”

“I just want to see—”

“It’s not even keeping me drunk. These Cerberus implants are nuts. Had to down some ryncol.”

“Then it shouldn’t matter,” Garrus said firmly. “Shepard, _please_.”

“No.”

Garrus sighed and retracted his hand. He ran it back over his fringe. They were both silent for a moment, Shepard watching Garrus’s movements as she was still as stone. Finally, he looked at her, still having to glance down because he had so much fucking height on her. “I really am sorry, Shepard. I should’ve kept my head. I wish I’d never said it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shepard said. “I was goading you. I was… I was…” She made her fingers dance out from her temple, wiggling in the air. “Pppppppffft.”

He appeared confused. She was used to reading his mandible movements by now; she couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was closed off. When he wasn’t purposely masking himself, he was the most expressive person she knew. Garrus tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I still…” Shepard ran a hand back through her hair. “I still go back to Torfan sometimes.”

Just like that, Garrus understood. Shepard felt her vulnerability deep in her gut. No one knew she was still dealing with PTSD. _No one._ Somehow, she didn’t mind that Garrus knew. Shepard made a slashing motion in the air. “This wasn’ about me, though. It’s about you. I’m sorry. You didn’t want to talk and I made you.”

Garrus wasn’t good with vulnerability, either. They were both very private people, but if they could share battles and jokes and space, couldn’t they share openness, too? “You were flashing back,” Garrus said. He looked out the window, and Shepard felt the disconnect in her heart. She wanted him to keep looking at her. “You picked fight so I wouldn’t notice.”

If he wouldn’t look at her, then he had to connect with him somehow. She let herself drift forward with the intention to rest her head on his shoulder, but even sitting down she was short and her forehead smacked his plated cowl. It wasn’t as hard as she was expecting, but it was certainly different from human skin, even with his shirt between them. “It worked,” she said happily.

She felt Garrus sigh. The huge rise and fall of his chest made her dizzy. “It shouldn’t have.”

Wait! If he was looking out at space, then he wouldn’t see her drink. She reached for the vodka bottle and brought it up to take a stealthy swig, turning her head slightly to the side so the bottle wouldn’t bump Garrus, but something hit her hand, hard. The vodka careened into the window and the thick glass fractured. When Shepard looked at her knuckles, they were bloody, a shard of reflective glass caught in the middle of her hand. Water ran nearby. A glance up showed her reflection in the window—close-cropped hair, bags under her eyes, her shoulders sagging with the remaining KIA letters she had to write. She had punched the mirror. She hadn’t meant to, but she did. What the fuck had she done?

There was a hand on her face, gripping her chin, turning her head away from the window. Why was Garrus here? He should still be in the military, not in the hotel room the Alliance had paid for. His eyes were so blue.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I was worried,” he said softly. “Looks like for good reason, too.”

She knew she should shrug his hand off, but she didn’t. Shepard broke his gaze to glance around the room; the bottle of vodka had shattered, not the mirror. Garrus had knocked it out of her hand, hadn’t he? She couldn’t find the energy to be mad. She looked back to Garrus, her gaze tracing his colony markings and mandibles before flickering back up to his eyes. “’m glad I don’ see me when I look at you. Butcher wasn’t a good look. Y’ were trying to steal it.”

Garrus’s mandibles pulled in tight as his browplates came together. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? ‘s what I am.” Where was this inner peace when she was sober? She didn’t need to feel conflicted over Torfan. She killed those people, and she’d keep killing other people. Wouldn’t it be easier to forget her compassion? It was a hindrance. “I shoulda killed Sidonis for you. Then you wouldn’t’ve had to become like me, and he still woulda fuckin’ died.”

The hand on her face shifted so it was cradling her cheek. She closed her eyes against the feeling of his warm palm, nuzzling in as he spoke. She didn’t hear what he said, but he sounded sad. She didn’t want Garrus to be sad. He couldn’t be sad when his hands were so warm.

“Oh!” she realized, eyes opening to reach for his other hand. Garrus was startled out of speaking as she looked at the smooth hide of his hand. “You took your gloves off!” She groped one of his talons and nearly cut her thumb.

“That’s what you have to say?” he asked, wry. “Just an observation, after all that?”

“Wasn’t listening,” Shepard said. She held his palm with one hand and flexed his fingers with the other. They were longer and thicker than hers, but they bent the same way. “I… I’ve had a lot to drink.” The confession was embarrassing.

Garrus stroked her cheek with the hand still held to her face. The pad of his thumb had a rough callus on the side of it, but his skin was still smoother than she was expecting. Tiny plates, more like scales, speckled the backs of his fingers and grew larger to sweep up the back of his hand, disappearing under long sleeves. She wanted to see what his arms look like. “I wanna see your arms.”

He chuckled, but the sound was sad. “Let’s chat once you’ve slept this off, okay?”

Shepard let go of his hand to catch his other one as he withdrew it from her cheek. She held it lightly, like it was going to shatter with the slightest bit of pressure. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to be serious. “Garrus,” she started, gathering herself before looking up to meet his gaze, “are we going to be okay?”

His mandibles stretched outward, framing his face. “You and me?” He curled his fingers around her hand. “Do you even need to ask?”

She took a deep breath and held it in. Steady. Steady. “Help me up.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

The world swayed as he pulled Shepard up, but she kept her feet planted firmly. Commander Shepard wasn’t normally a vulnerable drunk. She knew she should’ve waited until she was sober to talk to Garrus, but she couldn’t regret his intrusion into her Shepard-drinks-the-bar time. He understood her—took _time_ to understand her—like no one else had in a long time. Sure, she enjoyed her close friendships with others on her crew. The people on the Normandy were the only family she had left. With Garrus, though, their friendship was effortless. He knew what she’d gone through and respected what he saw. She was proud of the way she’d watched him grow and change over the years, turning into someone capable and reliable but still growing. She loved his dark, dry sense of humor and the seemingly natural air of confidence that she knew was at least somewhat for show, but it wasn’t all bravado either. He could be brutal—today had cemented that thought in her mind—but he could also be so kind. He’d always have her back, even if he’d just gotten half his face blown off and he had to walk into a plague zone that killed turians (not that she’d let him come on that mission). Shepard knew that Garrus Vakarian had her six everywhere: on the battlefield, on this Cerberus-staffed Normandy, on the Citadel where everyone was wary of the dead woman walking around with glowing scars.

And was it weird that she found Garrus sort of handsome? He was still strange-looking, of course—his cowl was too large, his fringe too foreign, his feet half-upright in a way that made him absurdly taller than her. But his eyes were so blue and his mandibles so expressive and his hands so strong. She liked his tapered waist and jutting hips and the awkward way that his right arm was slightly thicker than the left (a sniper’s curse, he’d told her once). Just being around him made her warm, and she wanted to keep looking at him for ages, to find parts of him that were less alien and more endearing.

“Shepard?”

She blinked rapidly, realizing that she’d been staring at him. Shepard dropped his hand, cramming her hands into the pockets of her sweatpants. “Sorry,” she said. “I can… I’ll make it to the loft.”

Garrus huffed. “I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t at least walk you to the elevator.”

Shepard rolled her eyes and regretted it when it made her stomach roll in tandem. “You’re so classy. And they say chivalry died a century ago.”

“I try, I try.” He flanked her to the elevator, a hand hovering nearby if she needed it. She was surprised by how much she wanted to take it. Since when had she wanted to touch Garrus at every opportunity? Shepard definitely hadn’t felt like this on the SR-1—wait, _felt_? Who said she was feeling something for him besides camaraderie? Shepard definitely didn’t insinuate that with her internal monologue about his finer qualities and alien attractiveness.

It’s just because she’s drunk, Shepard reassured herself. People could have fetishes that only appeared when they were drunk, right? She would wake up tomorrow morning and Garrus would still be her best friend, but she wouldn’t want to reach for his hand anymore. It would be a subtle change, but Shepard would breathe a sigh of relief, because even though this Normandy wasn’t an Alliance vessel, she’d had it drilled into her head that fraternization was bad, especially with an alien, and _especially_ with a turian. The First Contact War was only a few decades back, and the armistice didn’t mean she should be jumping into bed with a bird.

Shepard shook her head. None of this mattered anyway—even in the improbable event she still had this crush in the morning, there was no way he’d feel the same. It was already unlikely enough that she suddenly wanted to jump into bed with him; the idea that he, for whatever reason, wanted to do the same with her was absurd.

“Going up,” Garrus said as they reached the elevator, hitting the button to call it. They stood there waiting, Shepard swaying slightly, Garrus at her back. She could feel his eyes on her. She didn’t want to turn around to catch him staring, because she might take action and regret it later.

“Come on, Shepard,” he said, taking her elbow and guiding her into the elevator. Oh, she hadn’t noticed its arrival. “I hope you sleep well. Go straight to bed, okay?”

“Alright,” she said faintly.

“EDI, let me know when she’s in her room.”

“Of course, Officer Vakarian,” EDI replied as Shepard said, “I can walk fifteen feet to my bed, Garrus!”

“Goodnight.” Garrus hit the button for the loft and sent her on her way. “Don’t get lost.”

“Wait!” Shepard threw her hand into the space between the doors as they closed, keeping them open. She stumbled slightly but didn’t fall. “Tomorrow,” Shepard said, looking up at Garrus, “we’ll be fine. We talked. We’re good.”

“If that’s what you want,” Garrus said quietly. With a small smile, he reached out, putting her hand back at her side so it wasn’t blocking the doors anymore. After his arm withdrew, the doors slid shut.

The upward glide of the elevator made Shepard feel lightheaded, but once she made it to her cabin, she was able to get to her bed just fine. She laid face-down on top of the sheets, willing herself not to look up out of the skylight as her stomach protested this new position. Ryncol was a bad idea for one of the _last_ drinks. Next time, she’d try it first and see how that went. Hopefully it’d be better than this fiasco.

Should she keep drinking, though? She’d gone over five years without a drink after Torfan, but once she’d been brought back to life, she found that alcohol didn’t pull at her so hard. She remembered being an alcoholic—the constant hangovers, the urge to drink seated deep in her gut, the relief whenever she sipped on something strong and she didn’t have to be angry. But Shepard _wasn’t_ angry anymore. Booze didn’t have the same gravity for her. Maybe she _could_ start drinking again, in moderation, with people around to look after her.

She’d think about it another time. Now, she had to focus on the alcohol she’d recently consumed, which was trying to make its way back up her digestive tract.

Shepard couldn’t throw up from alcohol. She was a goddamn N7. Marines didn’t throw up from drinking too much, and N7s _definitely_ couldn’t. Maybe if she thought that enough times, she could keep the liquid down with stalwart willpower.

Since it was Commander Shepard, it worked.

 

* * *

 

Shepard woke up the next morning with less of a hangover than she expected. Her throat was as dry as Tuchanka and her stomach was upset, but her cybernetics had worked overtime to make sure she was functional. She splayed a hand to the other side of the bed and found it empty, even though she could’ve sworn she’d talked Garrus into staying with her—

No, she realized with mortification. No, she’d just dreamed that whole sequence after Garrus pressed the button for her in the elevator. All of those hazy moments with his hands, his tongue, his _gentleness_ were a dream.

Instead of being disgusted with herself for having a sex dream involving her subordinate, she absorbed the thought that this new, inappropriate, _stupid_ crush on Garrus wasn’t a drunken reflection. It was there, and had probably been there for a while now.

Oh, she was fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more in this universe! Follow me on tumblr [here](http://mordinsolas.tumblr.com)!


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